Fall Guys + Jackbox Party Pack = ?
Hands-On Impressions of Survival Quiz City
Product Provided by GYAAR Studios and Phoenixx. The following article is NOT a paid for advertisement by GYAAR Studios and Phoenixx. The views in this article are mine and mine alone.
This past week, I had the opportunity to play Survival Quiz City, a brand new indie game from GYAAR Studios of BANDAI NAMCO and publisher Phoenixx. I had the chance to play on specific times and days during the pre-release sessions and only played two games. Here are my first hands-on impressions:
Survival Quiz City can be best described as a combination of Fall Guys and the Jackbox Party Pack Series. It’s a multiplayer platformer competition with quizzes. Before a round starts, you’ll answer a quiz question. It could be related to general knowledge or related to video games. If you get it right, you gain coins. If you get it wrong, you have to play through an obstacle course and reach the end to gain coins. Fail to reach the goal and you’ll receive zero coins. The players who answered the quiz question correctly will be able to stop players from reaching the goal by using these weapons to prevent progression. The coins are used to buy items to upgrade your character to help better prepare yourself for the quizzes ahead. Repeat this for multiple rounds and that’s a game of Survival Quiz City. Whoever has the most coins by the end of the game is the winner.
The quizzes are an interesting spin for a Fall Guys competitor. It has the anime aesthetic mashed with these dinosaur-like characters. The gameplay itself is relatively what I expected. You can jump, climb, and crawl your way to victory. There is a small boost you can give to your character but watch the stamina meter before it depletes. The weapon-play is a bit strange. I only got to play this section once and I sucked at it. Like I said earlier, I only had the chance to play two games in total and from those games alone, I had fun. As a huge fan of Fall Guys, I enjoy the battle royale aspect of that game so much more where games are purely based on your platforming skill with some luck involved. Also, game time varies depending on how well or how bad you do in a game of Fall Guys. Because no one is out of the game and has a chance of coming back through the quiz questions, Survival Quiz City can be more interesting to those that like trivia. It also takes into account how fast you answer the question because some answers are maxed out at a certain number. I don’t mind trivia despite being terrible at it but I did see a question repeat in my 2nd game which can be concerning. How many questions do they have in their backlog? And how long will it take players to see every question? The quizzes in combination with the platforming makes this a very unique game but I feel the quizzes being placed before every round can get boring. Maybe open the game up with a round where it’s purely platforming and the quiz is placed halfway through the course where if you get it right, you get a shortcut to the goal and if you get it wrong, you have to take the long way.
Survival Quiz City definitely has the potential of competing alongside Fall Guys as a competitive multiplayer platformer. As of right now, there can be more done to flesh out the quiz aspect and make the game standout more, besides from its unique art styles. It is $20 on Steam which I think is fair for a game like this. I’ve only played two games during the pre-release sessions, so I’ll definitely make a follow up to give my full thoughts on the game once I’ve put enough time into it. If this game seems interesting to you, a multiplayer platformer with quizzes mixed in, give Survival Quiz City a shot. It’s not going to be the “Fall Guys Killer” but has the potential to compete alongside it.
Travis “tvsonic” Vuong
Business e-mail: travisvuong56@gmail.com
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